The Minonk City Council discussed budget requests at their meeting Monday night. Issues discussed were water meters and ambulance needs.
City Administrator Bill Moline said there are about 1000 water meters in use in the city at the present, most of them being between 11 to 30 years old. The City is reviewing possible revenue loss due to the age of these meters and working through information before deciding if this is a viable project.
Mayor Koos stated he would like see verification of actual water meter error before recommending replacing the older style meters. If accurate, the return on investment should be 6 years.
Ambulance Chief Mindy Goodrich said she would like to raise the basic pay rate for an EMT from $13.50 to closer to $15.00 an hour. The need to replace the older 2008 ambulance at some point was discussed with replacement costs of roughly $175,000. This will be discussed more by the Finance Committee.
Administrator Moline had the following update on city projects:
- Public Works is working on taking down the City owned abandoned house on Jefferson Street.
- Work continues on the Woodford County Sheriff's Department (Star Com) communication antenna which will be located on the water tower.
- City Hall town wide "All Call" system should be up and going soon. City Hall will send out a TEST call once everything is in place.
In public comments, Dave Uphoff asked the council to consider including a tree replacement program in light of the fact that hundreds of ash trees are being cut down and also it will help alleviate global warming. Mayor Koos said there is money in the budget for tree replacement.